Greetings!

Hi
Welcome to Morcan Books & Films, the blog devoted to providing a unique perspective and intelligent commentary on books and films. It includes commentary on our own books and films – i.e. novels and screenplays co-written by the Morcans, and feature films produced by, or in development with, Morcan Motion Pictures.
Lance & James

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

In our new release book Vaccine Science Revisited we remind readers “smallpox epidemics were frequent” and “people all over the world were frightened” by them. We cite the examples of the 1625 Smallpox Epidemic in North America when entire villages were wiped out and the Massachusetts Colonial Epidemic of 1633 when the governor of the day reported “an Indian village by the Connecticut River with 1,000 inhabitants became devoured with the smallpox virus, in so much that 950 of them die”.

Our research showed that not everyone at the time considered the Native American smallpox casualties a travesty.

For example, in 1632 Reverend Increase Mather saw smallpox as a great blessing if his reported comments are any guide:

“About the same Time the Indians began to be quarrelsome touching the Bounds of the Land which they had sold to the English; but God ended the Controversy by sending the Small-pox amongst the Indians at Saugust, who were before that Time exceeding numerous. Whole Towns of them were swept away, in some of them not so much as one Soul escaping the Destruction.”

And in 1634, one John Wintrop, then Governor of Massachusetts, wrote:

“For the natives, they are neere all dead of the small Poxe, so as the Lord hathe cleared our title to what we possess”.

Commenting on another smallpox plague in 1679 called the Indian Plague, which “took countless souls” one Count de Frontenac Louis de Buade said:

“The Small Pox desolates them to such a degree that they think no longer of Meeting nor of Wars, but only of bewailing the dead, of whom there is already an immense number.”

With smallpox ravaging the world, the desperation for a cure was understandable. By the early 18th Century, variolation was the most logical choice for prevention. It had become a common practice in the Western Hemisphere by 1721, but not without opposition.

Boston physician, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, was a believer in the practice and performed experiments which in some instances ended in death. This caused uproar and people actively opposed the practice of variolation. Multiple pamphlets were written by both those for and against it.

The first full moon of the rainy season was a momentous occasion for the Dogon people of Mali. It marked the day, many countless moons ago when, according to legend at least, Moussa Diarra, one of their ancient forefathers, discovered Sirius B, the second star in the Sirius star system and one that wouldn’t be rediscovered by astronomers until hundreds of years later. And then only with the aid of telescopes. Every year, the Dogon used the occasion to celebrate Moussa’s discovery and to pay homage to the greatest of all their spiritual leaders.

So begins the prologue in our new release action-thriller THE DOGON INITIATIVE (The Deniables, Book 1).

The prologue continues:

Moussa had ruled over the Dogon when the Mali Empire was the largest in West Africa. Its western border stretched all the way to the Atlantic Ocean and it was a center of culture, language, education, mathematics, science, law, trade and great wealth. It was a time when the Dogon had considerably more influence. In the present day they are a persecuted minority facing cultural extinction as they’re continually attacked by larger ethnic and religious fundamentalist groups whose number include disenchanted Muslims.

The first full moon was a significant occasion for one of the great Moussa Diarra’s youngest descendants also for it marked the day of his birth, and that was another good reason for the Dogon of the tiny village of Tireli to celebrate.

Moussa’s namesake, ten-year-old Moussa Diarra, was too young to fully appreciate the significance of the occasion. Even so, he wore his legendary ancestor’s name with pride, and he basked in the adulation the villagers bestowed upon him. They believed him to be a Nommo, an ancestral spirit returned from the dead, and they dreamed that he would help them tap into their reservoir of knowledge dating back to ancient times and lead them back to their former greatness.

Physically, young Moussa was an unremarkable specimen, different to the other boys. Skinny and a little shorter than average, he did, however, have one remarkable feature: one eye (his right eye) was blue and the other brown. It was a trait he’d inherited from his father and from his father’s father going all the way back, as legend would have it, to the original Moussa Diarra.

For the Dogon, this was absolute and final confirmation that young Moussa was their future leader. A reincarnation, many claimed, of his revered ancestor. Some even insisted he had inherited all his ancestor’s genes…

Later in the prologue, Moussa’s bodyguard and mentor Ibrahim takes the boy to a secret cave high in the cliffs behind Tireli. We take up the story where the pair enter the cave.

Moussa followed the muscular Ibrahim through the entrance and discovered it opened up into a cavern almost as big as his father’s lodge. The front of the cave was dappled in sunlight; the rest of it faded to blackness.

“Where are we?” he asked. His voice echoed in the cave’s rocky confines.

“We are in a special place,” Ibrahim said, nodding to the near wall. “A sacred place.”

Moussa saw a shaft of sunlight had illuminated a map of the heavens on the wall.

“It was painted by Dogon artisans many centuries ago,” Ibrahim said. He knew that to be a fact because modern-day scientists and astronomers had researched similar paintings in other caves along the escarpment and had decreed the paintings around Tireli at least were between three-hundred-and-fifty and four hundred years old.

This particular map, one of many such ancient maps to be found in these caves, was adorned by strange symbols, which Moussa had never seen the likes of before.

Observing Moussa’s fascination with the ancient painting, Ibrahim knew he’d been right to suggest to the boy’s father that he bring him to this hallowed place on this special day…

A group of foreign mercenaries hired as deniable assets by a newly-formed humanitarian division of the CIA is tasked with saving Mali’s persecuted Dogon people from genocide. The operation must be carried out in stealth while journeying across some of West Africa’s most hostile terrain. As if all that’s not enough, they are also instructed to help solve an ancient astronomical mystery linked to the pyramids of Egypt.

In VACCINE SCIENCE REVISITED we give readers an insight into early attempts to treat infectious diseases – in particular how the doctors of yesteryear tried to combat the ravages of smallpox, that extremely contagious and deadly virus for which there is no known cure.

On June 27th, 1833, a 21-year-old man suffered from severe head and back pain. One day later, he was still in great pain and red spots covered his body and face. Smallpox.

By morning, Surgeon Henry George1 had come to see him. The surgeon wrote in his notebook:

“His mind was wandering; his limbs and voice tremulous; his tongue dry, and covered with a brownish-red crust [. . .].” 2

The man’s face was completely swollen from pustules. Surgeon George fed him beef-tea and arrow-root and gave him medication. This helped the young man sleep for a few hours during the night.

The morning after, the swelling was worse and the pustules had merged together and blanketed his face. By July 1st, five days after the illness started, his entire body had turned a bluish-gray color. The pustules covering his body were completely confluent. Calamine, which was often used to reduce smallpox scarring, was applied to his body.

His seizures were so intense that it took five people to hold him down. The seizures continued throughout his illness. By July 9th, nearly two weeks since he became sick, Surgeon George described the young man as:

“[…] the most horrid spectacle that can be imagined; lies, and while lying,

trembles from head to foot; his countenance suspiciously wild, and expressive of the darkest intentions; […].”3

From other accounts of what smallpox does to a person, we can assume the pain was unbearable. Infected skin cells shedding as the virus struggled for survival. With the skin peeling off, the virus escaped to re-enter the body via such means as saliva. Once in the saliva, the germ infected the digestive system, giving it access to all organs.

The pustules grew to the size of boils, and any physical touch excruciating. The slightest movement would have felt like the skin being torn off. Still, through all this, the young man stayed fully alert.

Surgeon George continued to explain how a couple of days later, the outer layer of skin had completely detached itself from the rest of his face. Although the surgeon did not describe his patient being any pain, we cannot help but wonder how painful the separation of skin from his face must have been. The nerves would have been exposed without a layer of protection.

Surgeon George described infections under both big toes and in one of the heels. The infections oozed a rancid bloody discharge. The smell, he described as “dreadful”.

Three weeks later, on August 30th, the surgeon notes that his patient had:

“[…] violent flushing of the face; he is now pale, cold, a degree of stupor hanging over him; very dilated pupil; cannot tell the hour, and seems unconscious of your presence [. . .] he does not now walk erect; in moving, his motions are very hurried, and his body considerably bent.”4

The surgeon continues to treat him with medication and wine. His last notes end on September 2nd with the patient more pleasant and reading the newspaper. The illness had consumed two full months of his life. He had survived the smallpox attack. He would live the rest of his life with major scarring to his face and body.

Stories of severe illnesses are not uncommon throughout our human history. Neither are the stories of humans’ innate desire for survival. We fight to prevent diseases and we fight to heal in the aftermath.

Desperate measures have been the groundwork for development of various techniques to ward off and to treat diseases. Even before our understanding of pathogens, or disease-causing germs, we were hard at work battling them. Often alchemy and superstitious practices became the main focus.

One such technique was described by a Chinese talisman, referred to in the book Chu yu shih-san kho5, on how to exorcize the smallpox out of a child:

“[…] write the magic character on paper with red cinnabar ink, burn it to ashes, and have the child take them in liquid.”6

Later on, these practices became more medicine-oriented. An example of such a source that explains various variolation, or inoculation techniques is I tsung chin chien (The Golden Mirror of Medicine). This is a collection of all available treatises, gathered together in 1739 by the Imperial College of Physicians in Peking. This collection contained four ways to prevent smallpox – as listed here:

“Aqueous inoculum method (shui miao fa). Allow a moistened plug of cotton-wool to imbibe an aqueous extract of a number of pulverised scabs (chia), and insert it into a nostril of the child to be inoculated.

“Dry inoculum method (han miao fa). Use slowly dried scabs, grind them into a fine powder, and blow it into the child’s nostrils by a suitable tube of silver.

“Smallpox-garment method (tou i fa). Wrap the child or the patient in a garment which has been worn by a smallpox sufferer during the illness.

“Smallpox lymph method (tou chiang fa). Impregnate a plug of cotton-wool with lymph from the perfectly matured pustules of a smallpox patient, and insert this into the nostril of the child to be inoculated.”7

The Chinese knew how virulent the virus being used for the inoculum was. This was very important as it dictated its safety and efficacy. A man by the name of Yü Thien-chhih8 explained how inoculates were only collected from patients with mild symptoms. They collected only from patients who had a mild strain of the virus. Any other more virulent or epidemic-type strains were considered too dangerous to use and would kill people, rather than immunize them.

In addition to the potency factor of various strains, Yü Thien-chhih mentions a monetary benefit to inoculation in a collection called Sha tou chi chieh from 1727:

“[. . .] you have to pay two or three pieces of gold for enough to inoculate one person. Physicians who want to make some profit pass it through the children of their own relatives. [. . .] Others eager for money steal away the scabs from [severe] smallpox cases and use the material directly. It is called pai miao (ruined inoculum). In such cases there will be 15 deaths in 100 patients.”9

You have been reading an excerpt from VACCINE SCIENCE REVISITED: Are Childhood Immunizations As Safe As Claimed?

Membership of our Underground Knowledge global discussion group on Goodreads.com continues to climb with the number of Undergrounders topping 10,500. It remains one of the most active and fastest-growing groups on the Amazon-owned book site for authors and readers.

The group’s aim is to encourage debates about important and under-reported issues of our era. All you need is an enquiring mind and a desire to gain or share ‘underground knowledge’. Everyone’s welcome!

The CIA recruits a team of foreign mercenaries. They are considered ‘deniable assets’ and go by the unlikely but somewhat prophetic name the Deniables. Their first mission is to repatriate one Moussa Diarra, an African exile, from New York back to his Dogon homeland in Mali, West Africa. Unfortunately, there are militant ethnic factions in Mali intent on preventing Moussa’s return and exterminating his people. His fate is in the hands of the Deniables.

That’s the premise of our new release action-thriller The Dogon Initiative (The Deniables, #1).

New action thriller available on Amazon.

For fans of the action-thriller genre, here’s two early chapters from this novel. In them, a newly formed team of young CIA hotshots plan a new initiative only a very select few at the agency even know about.

CHAPTER 3

Next morning, eight thousand miles away at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, USA, a small, select, think tank group of agency personnel brainstormed a new venture.

The four women and three men present were of various ethnicities and came from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Ranging in age from twenty-one to thirty-seven, they were surprisingly young considering the responsibilities and magnitude of the task entrusted to them. All seven dressed casually, looking more like university students than intelligence agents in their dress jeans and casual shirts or T-shirts (and their baseball caps in the case of the two youngest men) and they reclined on beanbags rather than conventional office chairs.

Four of them drank Fair Trade-certified coffee from recycled, environmentally-friendly, reusable, takeaway cups while one of the baseball caps absentmindedly demonstrated his expertise with a yo-yo and the youngest female chewed gum as they bounced ideas off each other.

The vigorous discussion was punctuated with banter, and interjections were frequent. Participants casually referred to the project they were brainstorming as the Dogon Initiative, or, sometimes more colloquially as the Dogon Job; the gum-chewer simply referred to it as the Dog Job, and that vulgarism was starting to catch on amongst her colleagues. Their use of everyday slang and obvious preference for casual dress seemed apt given there was nothing remotely formal or regular about this group of agents.

An outsider looking in might consider they were ad agency workers or software nerds perhaps, but first impressions can be deceiving. They were the CIA’s hotshots, recognized by management as seven of the agency’s most intelligent and unique thinkers. And despite appearances and despite their relative youthfulness, all but the three youngest had operational experience in the field.

Collectively, they made up the total staff of the grandiose-sounding but suitably vague The New Paradigms Team, which officially came under the umbrella of the agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology, but in reality was its own directorate.

It was no coincidence their roomy, well appointed, basement office was off limits to all but a few senior officials whose number included the agency’s director and deputy director. The hotshots were at the cutting edge of something only a handful of others at Langley even knew about it. Something that represented a daring departure from tradition.

The beanbags the think tank members occupied were roughly aligned in a circle on the plush, carpeted floor. In the middle of the circle was a three-foot tall replica of Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza, and it was that which currently commanded the attention of all.

On loan from one of the Smithsonian Museums in Washington, DC, the realistic, scale model was a spectacular reminder of how magnificent the original pyramid must have looked many thousands of years earlier. Sunlight streaming through ground floor-level windows strategically located just below ceiling level along the full length of one wall reflected off the replica’s gleaming, limestone-colored exterior and off the golden capstone at its very top, making it sparkle. The dazzling effect was such the replica might have been constructed of gold, silver, diamonds and other precious stones.

The model pyramid had special significance for the seven agents seated around it. They’d been tasked with masterminding a bold, new, long-term program within the agency. A program that the Dogon Initiative would be but one part of – albeit an important part.

The so-called Dog Job would herald the commencement of the new approach by American intelligence that the agency’s Cape Town asset, Lotte, had alluded to when pitching to Dean Hawkins in Nigeria the previous day. A more ethical approach that wouldn’t result in the usual blowback the CIA infamously attracted from its enemies around the world and from media watchdogs at home and abroad.

The office door opened and in walked Senior Agent Fred Daley. The suave, fifty-five-year-old closed both eyes as he was momentarily blinded by the brilliant sunlight reflecting off the replica pyramid’s golden capstone.

“For Christ’s sake, kids!” he grumbled, squinting at the assembled through one half-open eye.

One or two of Daley’s junior colleagues had trouble suppressing a smile as the twenty-seven-year agency veteran bypassed the last remaining vacant beanbag to plonk his tall, lanky frame down on the room’s only conventional office chair. It was an innocent action that somehow symbolized the differences between him and them.

The differences didn’t bother the others, and if they irked him he never let on.

Eying the young hotshots, Daley said, “Okay, I’ve heard back from the Budget Office’s Deputy Director. She insists she needs more details, hard details, if she’s to consider the twenty-five percent budget increase you want for this Mali mission.”

The hotshots collectively groaned.

“Goddamn it,” one of the baseball caps muttered.

“C’mon now,” Daley said as he looked around at the disappointed faces. “You gotta admit this is a speculative project you’ve chosen for a first-up assignment. There’s major risks involved using assets. Especially foreign assets –”

“Deniable assets,” one of the female agents reminded him.

The senior agent waved a dismissive hand. “Whatever… A speculative project using deniable assets who’ve never been contracted by the agency before… And on top of that, there’s a risk the ancient technology or whatever it is you’re hoping the Dogon have retained from the Earth’s ancient past may be nothing but Alex Jones-style conspiracy nonsense.”

Daley paused as if to invite objections. When there were none, he pulled out his smartphone, switched on its Video Recording mode and checked the screen to ensure all seven hotshots were in the camera’s frame.

“So sell it to me one more time,” he said as he began filming. “Convince me how the Dogon and their ancient history or technology can help America and I’ll try to get you the extra twenty-five percent.”

CHAPTER 4

Twenty-three year old Asian-American Tom Cheung, one of the baseball caps, and, at five foot four, the shortest by a country mile of all the assembled, leaned forward on his beanbag and stared directly at Daley over the top of the replica pyramid.

“Classified files both within the agency and other US and foreign intel agencies reveal a great deal of evidence,” Cheung said. “Not proof admittedly, but strong evidence that the Dogon’s advanced astronomical knowledge is very ancient and so predates the French astronomers who first visited them in Mali in 1893.” Cheung paused as he noisily adjusted his position on the beanbag. “This essentially debunks the popular myth that the Dogon people had no astronomical knowledge to speak of before then… before 1893… and were simply regurgitating the French –”

“Well let’s focus on the lack of proof then,” Daley interrupted. “Why hold faith in Dogon science if we don’t have absolute proof?”

“Because their culture is worth saving regardless!” twenty-eight-year-old Kathy Einhorn, a Jewish woman, said passionately. The six-foot tall Yale graduate added, “Remember, the Dogon are facing the likelihood of cultural extinction in the near future.” She retrieved her smartphone from the pocket of the denim jacket she wore and accessed a specific app.

A large, colourful hologram suddenly appeared, like magic, in the air just above the pyramid.

No-one was surprised. American intelligence had been using holographic technology for decades now – almost as long as the US Military had.

Einhorn’s hologram depicted a map of Mali. She pressed digital icons on her phone’s screen to zoom in so that the holographic map focused on Mali’s central plateau region where the Dogon reside. The map seemed to shimmer in the sunlight.

Cheung closed the blinds and the hologram was immediately enhanced.

“As we speak, the Dogon are being attacked by militant Muslims and other religious groups… right… there,” Einhorn said as red holographic arrows appeared above half a dozen villages highlighted on the map. “Our sources confirm some factions within the current Mali Government want the Dogon eradicated, too. These poor people are getting slammed from all sides for the very reasons we want to protect them… They hold ancient knowledge.” She looked directly at Daley. “Paradoxically, just as that knowledge is a threat to organized religions and established beliefs, it also could also be crucial to America’s future… and the world’s future, too.”

Still not convinced, Daley remained expressionless as he continued to video proceedings.

“You expect me to believe that any knowledge or wisdom to be found inside the heads of African desert nomads could somehow be crucial to our future?” he asked.

“Hell, yeah!” thirty-year-old transgendered (female to male) think tank member Bryce McNickle said, incensed. Pushing himself to his feet, he said, “We’re talkin’ free energy methodologies, interstellar engineering designs… Possibly even recovered ancient alien technologies” – the handsome transgender gestured to the replica pyramid before them – “not to mention how the pyramids were constructed… And our best scientists working on classified research projects claim all of those theories are quite possible. Thus the secrets the Dogon hold may help us in innumerable ways.”

“Well,” Daley responded, “what evidence do we have that they were aware of the Sirius thing before the French astronomers visited them?” He referred to a mystery that had long puzzled modern-day astronomers.

“A lot, actually,” Cheung said, reinserting himself into the discussion. “For example, many researchers believe the Dogon have work tools and implements whose shape is identical to Canis Major, or the Sirius Constellation. That includes Sirius B, the white dwarf star invisible to the naked eye.”

As Cheung spoke, Einhorn played with her smartphone. Above the replica pyramid in their midst, a new holographic image of a ceremonial Dogon hunting tool appeared with a map of the heavens superimposed behind it. Various points on the hunting tool aligned perfectly with the Sirius Constellation and even appeared to align with the white dwarf star Sirius B her colleague referred to.

Cheung continued, “Sirius B wasn’t discovered by our civilization’s astronomers until 1862, yet this ceremonial Dogon tool depicting that very dwarf star and its orbit around Sirius A is estimated to have been crafted many hundreds of years before the Nineteenth Century. Furthermore, the Dogon have an ancient ceremony called Sigui that directly mirrors the orbit of Sirius B around Sirius A… and, get this, there are four hundred-year-old Dogon masks still being used in Sigui ceremonial rites. This means the Dogon were at least centuries ahead of Nineteenth Century astronomers.”

“Well, have we or any of our associates reached out to the Dogon themselves to get their opinions on all these mysteries?” Daley asked.

“Yep,” Cheung said. “The Dogon say their astronomical knowledge was passed down in oral tradition and goes back thousands of years.” Before his boss could interject, the young agent quickly added, “I know that doesn’t equate to proof the Dogon knew about a star that’s invisible to the naked eye, but their response to criticisms from academia complicates things as 1893 isn’t that long ago. For example…” He nodded to Einhorn who promptly tapped the screen of her smart phone.

A holographic video of an eldery Dogon man appeared above the pyramid.

Cheung continued, “Here’s a video of a Dogon elder over a hundred years old. One hundred and sixteen I believe he was when this video was filmed last year. Still alive last we heard, which makes him one of the oldest in Africa.” He glanced at his companions and several nodded, confirming the elder was still alive. “And so if you do the math, this man’s parents were born long before 1893. Yet he swears both his parents learnt the stories of Sirius B from their parents… Another piece of crucial evidence that predates the French astronomers’ arrival in Mali by many decades at least.”

Cheung waited for one of his colleagues to answer. When none did, he said, “Well, as Bryce alluded” – he nodded to McNickle – “some would have it the Dogon received knowledge from visitors… Extraterrestrial visitors.”

Daley continued to play Devil’s Advocate.

“So you’re asking me to tell my superiors that ETs came from some distant galaxy, and the only people they decided to visit were a bunch of cliff-dwelling Africans in the middle of nowhere?”

“The Dogon are some of the oldest people around,” Latin American Ricky Santos said, entering the discussion. The thirty-three-year-old Stanford University law graduate continued, “So if the Ancient Aliens Theory is legit… and by the way I’m not necessarily saying any of us believe that ET hypothesis… Then potentially the Dogon might be one of the few peoples left on Earth who can remember the visitations… and recite it via their extensive oral tradition. But others around the planet allude to something very similar.” Santos looked at Daley who was still filming. “Shall I go on?”

The senior agent nodded.

Santos continued, “A good example of what I’m talking about is the Nazca Lines in Peru… They seem to be an attempt to communicate with sky gods. Likewise, Australia’s Aborigines have various sky beings in their oral traditions… So I think asking ‘Why only these people and nobody else?’ isn’t really relevant, especially concerning very ancient peoples like the Dogon. That’s just a hackneyed line mainstreamers use to try to debunk the possibility of such visitations.”

Daley was about to reply, when the youngest of the hotshots, twenty-one-year-old redhead Rachel Nider, the gum-chewer, and, as it happened, the owner of the highest IQ in the building, spoke up. “Many researchers also assume that detailed astronomical knowledge of distant stars invisible to the naked eye would necessitate ETs coming to our planet… Which is kinda a modern perspective and perhaps a by-product of a Hollywood-influenced culture… Like, who’s to say those who built the pyramids and performed other incredible feats of engineering weren’t capable of traveling to Sirius with advanced ancient physical technology created by humans on Earth? Or else something more obscure like exploring the universe using mental techniques… like remote viewing?”

Daley shook his head in frustration. “Can somebody just summarize this for me in a nutshell… and in English, please?”

All eyes turn to anthropologist Mary Catrell, who, at thirty-seven, was the oldest of the think tank members. Headhunted by the CIA only a year earlier, she’d already successfully completed two overseas field assignments, having been fast-tracked into active service by case managers who had quickly identified her unique abilities.

“There are undeniable connections between scientific and cosmological knowledge encoded in the myths of many cultures,” Catrell said. “These cosmo myths spread from Gobekli Tepe to pre-dynastic Egypt and the Shakti cult of India, and then from India into Egypt again in dynastic times and eventually around the world. The Dogon are preserving a lot of myths from Egypt as well as from other sources such as early Buddhism.”

Einhorn interjected, saying, “A good example being the Maori of New Zealand who have the same myths and use much of the same terminology.”

“Exactly,” Catrell agreed. “The Dogon myths and traditions have some authenticity because of parallels in Egypt that involve the same words for the same concepts. We can see this for ourselves in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics painted on the walls of caves in the Dogon’s homeland. As for their ancient knowledge of Sirius B, I agree with Rachel and don’t necessarily think beings came to Earth from there… or from any other planet. After all, the Dogon’s astronomical knowledge is part of a treasure trove of scientific knowledge encoded in myths.”

“A treasure trove of scientific knowledge encoded in myths?” Daley responded, and not without a trace of sarcasm.

Several think tank members shared knowing looks. Their superior liked to pretend he was a hard-ass, but they knew he was a bit of a softy beneath his gruff exterior. Except when he needed to be a hard-ass.

Undeterred, Catrell continued, “The more I look into it, the more convinced I am there was a human civilization that was advanced in engineering and science, but was largely wiped out by the onset of the near-glacial period we call the Younger Dryas, and nearly finished off by the end of that post-Ice Age period about eleven thousand five hundred years ago. Scientists believe a large solar outburst was responsible for the end of the Younger Dryas, remember. Such an event would devastate any advanced technological civilization, be it ancient or modern.”

“Mary’s right,” the other baseball cap said. Twenty-seven-year-old African-American Milton Rucker, who, to the amusement of the others wore his cap back to front, added, “After all, even a smaller climatic event on that scale would probably wipe out our civilization.”

The diminutive Cheung, who sat next to the six foot six inch tall Rucker, leaned over to his taller, older colleague and murmured, “We were wondering when you were gonna wake up.”

Quote from White Spirit: “To understand the Dreamtime, you must understand that we do not own the land. The land is our mother and she owns and nurtures us.” –Old Aboriginal saying.

White Spirit (A novel based on a true story).

When Irish convict John Graham escaped Australia’s Moreton Bay penal settlement only to be captured by a remote tribe of Aborigines who had never seen a white man before, he couldn’t have known what adventures lay before him.

At first, the natives thought Graham a white spirit, one of their own returned from the dead. And he considered them backward, bloodthirsty savages.

As the years passed, he became lover to the beguiling Aboriginal woman who ‘identified’ him as her late husband, and he became a father to her two children. He also came to realise the natives who had adopted him were people who harboured the same hopes, dreams and desires as himself.

Over this period, John Graham was never forgotten by the beautiful young Englishwoman he’d left behind. He was also tracked relentlessly by a native the British Army called the Tracker.

White Spirit (A novel based on a true story) is available via Amazon as a paperback and Kindle ebook: https://www.amazon.com/White-Spirit-novel-based-story-ebook/dp/B01LWIRH9J/

Bestselling INTO THE AMERICAS (A novel based on a true story) is a tale of two vastly different cultures, indigenous North American and European civilization, colliding head on. It is also a Romeo and Juliet story set in the wilderness.

Nineteen year-old English seaman John Jewitt is one of only two survivors after his crewmates clash with the fierce Mowachaht tribe in the Pacific Northwest. A life of slavery awaits John and his fellow survivor, a belligerent American sailmaker, in a village ruled by the iron fist of Maquina, the all-powerful chief. Desperate to taste freedom again, they make several doomed escape attempts over mountains and sea. Only their value to the tribe and John’s relationship with Maquina prevents their captors from killing them.

As the seasons pass, John ‘goes Indian’ after falling in love with Eu- stochee, a beautiful maiden. In the bloodshed that follows, John discovers another side to himself – a side he never knew existed and a side he detests.

The stakes rise when John learns Eu-stochee is pregnant. When a final opportunity to escape arises, he must choose between returning to civilization or staying with Eu-stochee and their newborn son.

The novel was inspired by the diary entries of young English blacksmith John Jewitt during his time aboard the brigantine The Boston, and also during his sojourn at Nootka Sound, on North America’s western seaboard, from 1802 to 1805.

INTO THE AMERICAS has been adapted to a feature film screenplay and the planned movie is in early development with Morcan Motion Pictures. Expressions of interest are welcome from experienced film producers and directors.